. >> reporter: late wednesday, mr. obama directed that the house and senate intelligence committees be given a classified memo on drone strikes abroad. it lays out the legal rationale for targeting american terrorism suspects. brennan has helped manage the program. oregon democrat ron wyden had pressed for release of the memo. he went directly to the issue during his first pass at questioning brennan. >> what should be done next to ensure that public conversation about drones so american people are brought into debate and have full understand what rules the government is going to observe when it conducts targeted killings. >> this hearing is one of the i think there is a misimpression on some of the am people that we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions. nothing could be further from the truth. we only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there is no other alternative to taking an action that's going to mitigate that threat. so we need to make sure there's an understanding, and the